Very impressive. Also a very nice looking car. I hope it will be available to us in the USA. Strange that consumption isn't even lower considering it's a very light vehicle.

An expensive system, but perhaps prices will come down and/or enough Europeans will be prepared to pay a hefty premium. Personally, I rather doubt that will happen. Europeans consider CO2 to be a collective responsibility, so superlative emissions by any single car won't make much of a difference.

Citroen and BMW have a more realistic handle on European consumers' attitudes regarding hybrids: good idea regardless of engine type, but keep it affordable. European cars are already much more expensive than US models, even though net disposable income is usually lower. Ergo, stop-start micro- and very mild hybrids are good enough for now. Besides, small fry contributions to reducing CO2 do add up and, they let everyone carry their share of the collective burden.

This is a major reduction in fuel consumption... 58% less than the regular diesel unit and 30% less than the previous diesel hybrid. All that within one year!!! This is a major achievemnent.

Makes you wonder what could be done by 2010.

Total unit cost could be brought down considerably by having the engine + power train + other sub assemblies + batteries + control units built in China or India. Fiat (+ many others) seems to be planning a similar approach.

The final asssembly of lower cost imported sub assemblies & parts would be done in Europe or USA-Canada for the local markets.

I wonder whether Peugeot can solve the NOx problem by 2010, despite their claim about emissions : the present 307 HDi model emits 7.5 more times NOx than the equivalent gasoline version... and 17 times more than a Prius.

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/vehicleDetails.asp?id=13282
http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/vehicleDetails.asp?id=15172

Besides, now than automakers claim they can make HCCI engines (see Mercedes DiesOtto or VW GCI), not sure that Diesel engines are the way to go.

Just the opinion of a European guy, tired about Diesel propaganda and a little poisoned after breathing its emissions. ;-)

andrichrose, the electric power is not directly comparable since a Prius NEEDS a big electric motor because of its very special planetary gear design. You must compare the 16 kW of the Peugeot with the 21 kW of a Prius battery, not with MG2 power. The same with the torque : having only one gear, a Prius MUST use such a huge torque to simply move : it's like if you were starting in top gear on a conventional vehicle...

A sound approach to full hybrid. However, as Rafael mentioned and even Peugeot admitted, the price premium over the non-hybrid model will be quite hefty for the European market.

Ergo, a more marketable (lower-cost) approach would be the use of:
-- a simple, low-cost Atkinson-cycle gasoline engine, giving much lower NOx, cleaner exhaust, and much cheaper exhaust emission control sytem,
-- a 4-speed automated manual instead of 6-speed, given the torque boost availability of the electric motor. More torque equal less gear shifting required, and pending more powerful batteries like A123 lithium, even a 3-speed unit may be adequate with more powerful motor and battery.

Since this vehicle appears to be smaller than the Prius, the higher fuel economy seems to come from its smaller size and higher fuel energy density rather than any increase in thermal efficiency due to the Diesel engine.

@ Roger

The current model 307 is as large or larger than the Prius (which I have just driven today for the first time). The old 307 is also more comfortable to drive than the Prius.

Plus the much-appraised PSA 1.6 HDi packs a punch and should give the hybrid 308 much better acceleration than the Prius. This engine is a really pleasant to drive.

With 6-speed manual transmission quickly becoming standard, I doubt there's a lot of money to be saved with a 4-speed tranny. Since the highest gear should be very long for efficient highway cruising, the shifts become very long and the engine is operated at less-than-optimum efficiency. I tried that with my parents' old Ford Scorpio and even though the engine had plenty of torque (3 litre Cosworth), I always whished it had another gear or two.

"Why does it have such a small pack, 1 kWh? Also why did Prius reduce capacity of its own pack to little more than 1 kWh?"

To keep costs and weight down. The early Prius needed a bigger battery (it was 1.9 kWh vs 1.3 kWh today) because the power density of the early NiMH wasn't up to much. Today they can make better power from a smaller and cheaper battery, so that's what they do.

A hybrid battery doesn't need to have large capacity if all it is doing is load levelling (like it is in the Prius). You only need bigger batteries if you want more EV range, ie for a PHEV.

I could feel pretty self-righteous tooling around in a car that puts out as little as 80g/km of CO2.

The Prius is rated at 78 g/km under the new JC08 standards -- without being a PHEV.

Thanks, jack, for the much-needed info on the Prius and 307 HDi. The NOx of the diesel car is 17 times higher! Wow. And the Prius accelerates 1 sec. faster while having larger internal space with a longer wheelbase and luggage space with the same hp rating.

jack, the Prius is a really nice car, maybe the most practical design that has yet been mass produced. I think it is probably superior for urban use to any diesel design, including this Peugeot concept, unless the all-electric range is enough to avoid using the diesel for most trips inside the city, which I doubt it is. However, I live in a rural area, and the vast majority of the driving I do is on the open road, which is why I would probably prefer to drive a car like this one, instead of a Prius. If I lived or drove regularly in the city, or anywhere else where localized emissions were an issue, I'd be more concerned about things like soot. Out here in the sticks, my main concern is CO2, which is a global issue.

"..I would probably prefer to drive a car like this one,..."
I was referring to this 308 hybrid concept, not the the 307 Hdi.

"The Prius is rated at 78 g/km under the new JC08 standards -- without being a PHEV."
I don't want to get in another endless cycle of nitpicking and debating statistics, but Toyota is only claiming 104g/km on their website for the current Prius model: http://www.hybridsynergydrive.com/en/prius_emissions.html
Either way, it's a very low number, and a very clean and efficient car relative to current production vehicles. But I don't believe in a one solution fits all approach, either. Petroleum refining yields both gasoline and diesel, and it makes sense to try to balance demand for the two fuels, although both fuels have advantages and disadvantages, and I think it is pretty safe to say that diesel makes less sense in urban areas. NG also makes a lot of sense in some areas, and hopefully all-electric designs can become competitive, as well.

Repeat after me:

CO2 is not a pollutant, it's plant food. NOx or SOx will kill you.

CO2 is not a pollutant, it's plant food. NOx or SOx will kill you.

CO2 is not a pollutant, it's plant food. NOx or SOx WILL kill you.

I'll make a wager with anyone that wants to here and now, for $100 dollars. By 2012, we will not be concerned with atmospheric CO2; and we will regard it like the quaint concern for acid rain, or Y2K hysteria, or the atmosphere igniting due to nuclear bomb explosions.

OTOH, we will still be actively preventing the emissions of genuine pollutants, like NOx, SOx, and PM, for a long, long, time.

Anyone want to bet?

It's like taking money from a baby. The Science is in; It has been published in genuine peer-reviewed Scientific papers. The knowledge just hasn't permeated to the pop press and the non-scientific community.

The only concern for CO2 will remain as a crude measure of transport efficiency in substituting for fossil fuels in the Ground Transport application. That one, single application that represents over 80% of the consumption of Oil.

Fossil inefficiency, and limitation of total supplies will still be a concern. The solution to that problem, however, will be much more visible, as the substitute, electrification of ground transport, becomes even more evident, in the millions of LDVs extant, and obviously cleaner more inexpensive than fossil consumption, in any form.

To quote a Oil Sheik, "The Oil Age will end, like the Stone Age did before it; long before Man ran out of rocks".

Political propaganda has a long enduring life, long after the reality reveals otherwise.